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 FINDINGS
 
  A study of one the most agonizing decisions faced by men with early prostate cancer -- whether to have surgery or wait and see whether it spreads -- found that for those younger than 65, operating clearly saves lives, cutting the death rate by more than half.
 
 For men older than 65, however, the jury is still out, and these men account for the vast majority of prostate cancer patients.
 
 Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer in American men, after skin cancer.
 
 Often, doctors recommend "watchful waiting," because the tumor grows so slowly in many men that they die of something else before the cancer kills them. Also, surgery to remove the diseased prostate carries risks: impotence and incontinence.
 
 The study, led by Anna Bill-Axelson of Uppsala University Hospital in Sweden, is in today's New England Journal of Medicine. It followed Scandinavian men younger than 75 for a decade after surgery and found that surgery reduced deaths from any cause by nearly half.
 
 About 9.5 percent of those who underwent surgery and 15 percent of those in the watchful waiting group died within 10 years of the diagnosis.
 
 Scientists in France have found that people whose hearts beat too fast during rest and too sluggishly during exercise have a higher chance of sudden cardiac death.
 
 The research, believed to be the first on sudden death in healthy people, relied on simple stress tests.
 
 The study, in today's New England Journal of Medicine, found the risk of sudden death was about four times the norm in men whose hearts beat fast while resting or didn't speed up as much as they should during exercise. Sudden death was twice as likely in men whose heart rates didn't slow down enough in the minute after exercise ended.
 
 -- From News Services
 
 Scientists in France have found that people whose hearts beat too fast during rest and too sluggishly during exercise have a higher chance of sudden cardiac death.
 
 The research, believed to be the first on sudden death in healthy people, relied on simple stress tests.
 
 The study, in today's New England Journal of Medicine, found the risk of sudden death was about four times the norm in men whose hearts beat fast while resting or didn't speed up as much as they should during exercise. Sudden death was twice as likely in men whose heart rates didn't slow down enough in the minute after exercise ended.
 
 -- From News Services
 
 
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